Parabéns São Paulo! – Part 2.

What a lovely gif to represent a cloudy day, don’t you think?! A Brazilian writer, don’t remember who, now (*lol*) wrote that, on cloudy days, the sun plays hide and seek with the clouds! ^^ Today, the sun is hidden behind the clouds, here in São Paulo. It’s +22C and I’m happy, because I had a very productive morning and could finally sleep last night, after three sleepless nights! Now, I’m having a cup of tea and thinking about something interesting to write about my city. São Paulo can’t be described by only one person … It’s a multi-faceted city. But I believe that we all (people from São Paulo), have some common impressions and experiences. The traffic jams. The crowded places. The daily stress. The pollution. The noise. The diversity. The fear of the unknown. The coldness and impersonality of the human relationships. The brief conversations or flirts in the subway (shopping center, movie theater, urban park, handicraft market, library, …) with people that we will never see again. The endless queues everywhere. Avenida Paulista, Parque do Ibirapuera, Liberdade, Praça da República, 25 de Março, Mercado Municipal. Virada Cultural, São Silvestre, the traditional Japanese parties at Liberdade, Campus Party. Pizza, pastel, bauru, misto quente, yakisoba, quibe, esfiha and dozens of dishes, from dozens of people, from all over the world. São Paulo is the most diverse city of Brazil. It received, from the beginning, many foreign immigrants, especially from Italy, Japan and Middle East. The Italians came in big groups, to work in the coffee plantations. If you read my previous post about São Paulo (if you didn’t, click here), you already know that all the richness and power of my city came from the coffee plantations . The Italians influenced deeply our culture. There are Italian districts here (Bixiga, Brás, Barra Funda), we are very familiar with Italian food and even our way to speak Portuguese is influenced by the Italians. It seems that we are singing. And we gesticulate a lot! *lol*

Avenida Paulista (a part of it, of course):

São Paulo has a very rich, diverse and intense cultural life. It’s probably the best place in Brazil for people who like to go to the movies, theaters, art galleries, art and photography exhibitions, concerts, restaurants, handicraft markets and events! A few years ago, I used to go out every single weekend and enjoy the cultural life of my city for free! Yes, a lot of nice things happen here for free! I remember that I used to go out in the morning, sometimes, and spend the whole day at CCSP - Centro Cultural São Paulo (Cultural Center São Paulo). I knew everybody there! It’s a place where you can find everything related to culture, at the same time: libraries, movies, theaters, art galleries. It’s a place for studies, too. I spent hours at the art library, improving my origami skills. Yes, I love origami and almost everything I know, I learned from the Japanese books of the art library, at CCSP! After the “origami lessons”, I watched a concert, then a play, then a movie … Me and my friends used to come back home at night! It was so nice! I don’t know how are the things going at CCSP nowadays, but a couple of years ago, that place wasn’t the same anymore. It was even dangerous! São Paulo changed a lot in the past years. It became a strange place, full of aggressive people and cops everywhere. Maybe it was only a phase … I’m honestly missing the old times and want to explore the cultural life of São Paulo, again! Of course, I’ll tell you about my experiences!

Centro Cultural São Paulo:

http://cultura.culturamix.com/blog/wp-content/gallery/centro-cultural-de-sao-paulo/centro-cultural-de-sao-paulo-10.jpg 

This is not a good picture. The building is HUGE! But … I didn’t find a better pic, on internet. It means I need to take my own!

There’s always something to do here. If the vibe is good, of course … The urban parks are great places! I think you’ve already realized that São Paulo is a grey city, full of buildings, so, the urban parks are a little bit of nature, quietness and peace, in the middle of the chaos! The most famous is Parque do Ibirapuera. It’s a huge one, pretty and interesting! I used to bike there and spent lovely mornings and afternoons there, with my friends and boyfriends, when I was a teen! There are some museums, an artificial lake and some animals there. But my favorite urban parks are Parque da Aclimação and Parque da Água Branca. They’re smaller, more quiet and so beautiful!

Parque do Ibirapuera:

http://www.parquedoibirapuera.com/wp-content/gallery/verde/parque-ibirapuera-arte-turismo-lazer-em-sao-paulo.jpg

Beautiful, don’t you think?

São Paulo is a place of diversity, as I told you before. In every single sense. The social inequality is a type of diversity and it’s huge, here. São Paulo is still the financial center of the country, so, here, money and status count a lot! Many many people here care too much about material goods and signs of status, like diplomas and occupations. So, there’s a lot of bias and intolerance here, too. São Paulo is a place where the extremes live together. Homeless people and millionaires. Open-minded people and bigots. Left and right. São Paulo is a very modern city, an interesting place, where you can listen to Lebanese pop music, eat yakisoba, watch a Nigerian movie and talk to your friends from Sweden, at the same time. Where different and unique people (like me *lol*) are everywhere, creating fashion all the time. But there’s a lot of conservative, racist, homophobic and intolerant people here, too, who judge you by how many material goods do you expose! Diversity in every sense.

Different points of view, opinions, faces, looks, realities, priorities … this is São Paulo. A place that you can’t love completely. A place that you can’t hate completely. A city that never stops and grows in a chaotic way. Money, progress, greed walk together with simplicity. It’s hard to describe my city. This is a portrait, a point of view. I love this place! I hate this place! My roots are here, I probably have some concrete in my veins, just like the buildings. I speak and think and act very fast, like almost everybody here. I’m impatient and can’t relax. I’m part of this strange world. São Paulo says who I am, I say what São Paulo is. My homeland. A place that I miss to death every time I travel. A place I can’t stand when I’m here *lol*. A paradox made of buildings.

That’s all for today, folks! Stay tuned. Other posts will come!

Luna

P.S.: Sometimes I think that the anthem of São Paulo should be this song: (This video was released in the 80’s. The band is from São Paulo, one of the main bands of my city: Ira. The video is cheesy, but the song is absolutely beautiful!)